. Now listen how you both expressed yourselves before me on
that day.

"I believe," said Edgar, "that love is a modern invention, and woman was
invented by Andre Chenier, and perfected by Victor Hugo, Dumas and
Balzac. We owe this precious conquest to the revolution of '89. Before
that, love did not exist; Cupid with his bow and quiver reigned as a
sovereign. There were no women, there were only _beauties_.

"O, miracle des belles,
Je vous enseignerais un nid de tourterelles."

"These two lines have undergone a thousand variations under the pens of
a thousand poets. Women were only commended for their eyes--very
beautiful things when they _are_ beautiful, but they should not be made
the object of exclusive admiration. A beauty possessing no attraction
but beautiful eyes would soon lose her sway over the hearts of men.
Racine has used the words _eye_ and _eyes_ one hundred and sixty-five
times in _Andromache_. Woman has been deprived of her divine crown of
golden or chestnut hair; she has been dethroned by having it covered
with white powder. We have avenged woman for her long neglect; we have
preserved the _eyes_ and added all the other charms. Thus women love us
poets; and in our days Orpheus would not be torn to pieces by snowy
hands on the shores of the Strymon."

"Ah! that is just like you, Edgar," you said, with a sad laugh and a
would-be calm voice. "At dessert you always give us a dish of paradoxes.
I myself greatly prefer Montmorency cherries."

Some minutes after Edgar said:

"The other day I paid a visit to Delacroix. He has commenced a picture
that promises to be superb; my dear traveller, Roger, it will possess
the sky you love--pure indigo, the celestial carpet of the blue god."

"I abhor blue," you said; "I dread ophthalmia. Surfeit of blue compels
the use of green spectacles. I adore the skies of Hobbema and
Backhuysen; one can look at them with the naked eye for twenty years,
and yet never need an oculist in old age."

After some rambling conversation you uttered an eulogy on a sacred air
of Palestrina that you heard sung at the Conservatory concert. When you
had finished, Edgar rested his elbows on the table, his chin on his
hand, and let fall from his lips the following words, warmed by the
spiritual fire of his eyes.

"I have always abhorred church-music," said he. "Sacred music is
proscribed in my house as opium is in China. I like none but sentimental
music. All that does not resemble